Last week, I sat alone at the bar in a family-friendly local pizza place. Only two miles away from where I live, this restaurant appeals to me for other reasons, like its theme. It is “galactic,’ with the inside of the building decorated with elaborate otherworldly creations. Paper mache planets hang from the ceiling, while shape-shifting stars are projected onto the wall with multi-colored lasers. Artful alien cartoons accompany menu items written with chalk above the bar. The fact that I enjoy the general vibe of this restaurants atmosphere makes me smile at the irony.
There is something very silly about sitting at a bar alone, drinking beer before eating pizza, surrounded by reminders that we are all floating on a rock somewhere in the universe and we don’t know why. Some of us spend our time here on this planet researching and experimenting, searching for truth, only to scratch the surface with our scientific discoveries. Others spend their time here on this planet searching for truth by drinking beer while waiting for pizza.
I’ve noticed that “family-friendly” bars and restaurants tend to irk guests who don’t have children. Kids and their erratic energy seem to be an annoyance to most bar-goers.
Sitting to my left, I watched an old married couple become increasingly irritated by a group of loud pre-teen boys. These whisky-drinking white-haired folks automatically labeled the innocent boys as unwanted alien contacts threatening their dining experience. They acted as if they had forgotten we were all children once.
My opinion of children at family-friendly restaurants, and in general, is quite the opposite. I believe we must pay attention to our youth because there are countless lessons to be relearned through the eyes of our children. Paying attention to kids has enriched my life as if the simplicity of their presence activates wonders that lay dormant inside of everything. What we are willing to learn from a child correlates with what we are willing to learn from the human experience, while we spin on a rock somewhere in this universe.
So naturally, I shifted my attention from the agitated silver-haired couple, toward the group of boys instead. There were four of them sitting at a table without adults, sharing conversation inbetween eating chicken wings and staring at one of the TV screens. Their ages ranged between ten and twelve I guess. Going to restaurants without adult supervision wasn’t allowed yet, and sitting at separate tables from their parents in the same building was becoming old. Still, considering the circumstances, they seemed patient.
The four boys became passionate about saving enough extra sauce for their chicken wings. I watched them share a tiny container of sauce with each other. Their attention was also fixated on a TV screen behind my line of vision. It didn’t cross my mind to observe what they were watching until one of the boys spoke in an abrupt outburst to his friend.
“You don’t wanna watch the fight! You wanna watch the GIRL.” He exclaimed with a mouth half full of chicken before discarding a bone.
That’s when I decided to turn my head and investigate the content of the TV. It appeared to be a WWF fight.
On the screen, a female-bodied person was showing perfectly sculpted cleavage in her skin-tight costume while she threw punches at a shirtless male-bodied person with a carved torso. Theatrics or not, they were both sweating, and their shiny bodies were reminders of our innate animalistic tendencies, despite spinning on a rock, have evolved.
“You don’t wanna watch the fight! You wanna watch the GIRL.” The words kept replaying in my mind.
These were compassionate boys who practiced manners at a restaurant while also choosing to share with one another. They were good kids. They were smart kids. The fight and the girl had already become separate aspects in their mind. Desiring a woman, and sexualizing a woman, had already taken over and blurred reality for these boys.
The girl IS fighting. We are all watching her fight.
There is no watching the girl without watching her fight.
The girl is fighting. All of this is staged. It is theatrics for them.
But the girl is fighting and it requires all of her strength.
My thoughts ruminated.
I stopped watching the screen, glanced back at the boys, and took a sip of my beer before breathing. Then, a group of ten girls around the same ages as the boys entered the restaurant for what seemed like a birthday party. Instead of making their way to the area of the restaurant that was pre-designated for the party, the girls headed straight for the small arcade room in the corner.
The arcade room was located right behind the table of boys, and I watched while these young girls stormed the corner of the galactic pizza place. They were confident and they were together. It made me think of my childhood, and for a second I was saddened by how alone I used to feel. These girls didn’t seem alone.
One of them approached the arcade machine with the dangling claw, while the others gathered around and cheered for her to try to grab a prize.
The cheering was loud yet short-lived because the girl dropped the claw and won a prize on the first try. The first try! I searched my memory of my own experiences with those sorts of machines at arcades. Images of metal claws lightly grazing whichever prize I had my eye on, before retreating right back to the top of the machine after all of my tokens were gone, flashed across my vision.
I was different from them when I was a kid. These girls were confident and they were together. Or maybe I was the same but lacked understanding of my strength because I was distracted by the theatrics.
“Do you want extra Parmesan packets, girl?” the bartender brought me out of my inner world with the arrival of my to-go pizza.
I said yes to the bartender, because I did want extra cheese, but also because she had strong, beautiful eyes.
She was confident and she was together.
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
